Where Are The XML Apps We Can See And Touch?
"Nobody’s more jazzed than me about Web services. But let’s not forget that people need to engage with those services. The first-generation Web did forget that. What was intended to be a collaborative medium turned into something more like television, and reduced people to sets of eyeballs. Will the next-generation Web make the same mistake? I hope not, and I believe XML can help us out. But not if it just reinvents the plumbing. It had better also improve the apps we see and touch."

Review: Groove’s collaborative peer-to-peer software still immature
"To some degree, Groove lives up to those promises. But the software, whose first version was released earlier this month, needs work. The Groove we experienced is mostly about the future, not the present. Groove craves computers and Internet connections superior to today’s standards. It is expandable, adaptable, customizable. For that, though, developers are required."

TheEndOfFree.com
"[P]ointers and commentary about the demise of free web sites and services, the efforts to switch to subscription or other models, and related issues."
My many faithful readers (ahahah) know that I’m interested in this topic, so I joined this collablog launched by Evan Williams.

Got 15 minutes?
You’ve heard about the ArsDigita mess. Philip Greenspun has a detailed account. As Dave Winer suggests, let’s hear the story from the VCs.
07/12/01 update: settled off court, "a result of the settlement, Greenspun has resigned from ArsDigita’s Board of Directors and will exercise no ongoing management or stockholder control."

Amazon Squeaks Past Its Own Estimates
"For the first time, Amazon broke out the revenues from what it calls its "service" business, partnerships it has signed with Toys ‘R’ Us, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and other companies. While revenues in the service business were a modest $42 million, they accounted for $4 million in pro forma operating profits, the second Amazon business segment to achieve operating profitability."
They’re still losing a lot of money, and while consumer electronics grow, books, music and video don’t.
05/07/01 update: EBITDA Addiction Growing At Dot-coms. 06/25/01 addon: Name Your Own Reality.

MSN MoneyCentral and CNBC.com merge
"Microsoft and NBC will merge MSN MoneyCentral and CNBC.com into a single personal finance destination. The new site, CNBC MoneyCentral, will debut this summer exclusively right here on MSN."
GE and Microsoft, the two largest market caps, apparently liked MSNBC enough to merge their financial sites too.
Update: The Standard: CNBC.com to Merge With MSN MoneyCentral.